Match Pictures | Matches: 1998 – 1999 | 1998-1999 Pictures
Trivia
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The Humping
- Game has gone down in Celtic history for the 1990’s as The Humping, a time when Celtic victories over Rangers were not a common occurrence
- One of the last Celtic v Rangers games to have been played at 3pm on a Saturday! (exc Scottish cup finals etc)
- Johan Mjallby’s debut, he only signed a few days beforehand. Didn’t even get to go home to pack his bags etc.
- The game was also on loan keeper Tony Warner’s home debut.Tony only played three games for Celtic whilst on loan from Liverpool but he will no doubt live off the tale of having played in this game for the rest of his life.
- Celtic goalkeeper Tony Warner crashed his car after the game that night on the way back down the road to Liverpool, but thankfully was fine. He remarked on the incident (via twitter many years later): “Yeah, not even that could take the shine off the day.”
- Following the loss to St Johnstone the previous week Dr Venglos found himself under great pressure following a truly inconclusive start to the season. A loss in this game would have put the gap between them to 13 points in November – a completely unacceptable position.
- As Celtic dithered over completing the signing of Johan Mjallby other teams looked to offer him an alternative club. These included Bristol City, Liverpool, Sheffield Wednesday and Arsenal. Other European clubs were also becoming interested. However on 18/11 it was announced that the club had signed him for £1.5million on a four year deal. On the 19th the club said they were awaiting a work permit for Mark Viduka after agreeing a £4.00million for the player
- Stubbs and Annoni had recovered in time for the game and Lambert was back from his suspension. Mjallby made a magnificent debut. McNamara was a new addition to the injury list succumbing to a further knee injury. McKinlay did not play and Darren Jackson had gone on loan to Coventry on 20th November.
Review 
In what were very dark days, it was hard for us to get even a glimmer of hope that we were able to compete with the Huns. They were just financially way ahead of us, and there was a lack of stability at the club after Jansen had left at the end of the last season, and so all the good feelings were dissipating especially after the reception Fergus McCann got at the unfurling of the league flag back in August. The omens weren’t really good, but any game v Rangers was said to be unpredictable and this one lived up to that more than most.
Put simply we hunskelped them supremely. Two wonderful goals by Lubo followed by two more gems by Larsson and then capped by a Mark Burchill goal sent Celtic Park into delirium. The quality of the play was great, and you couldn’t ask for a better set of goals than that what was scored on the day. Lubo was a gem, and outshone everyone. A joy to watch, and the moniker “A Gift from God” was born for the great man.
It was a massive victory which got all our hopes up. Were we back in with contention? Was Venglos vindicated as a manager? Its all academic now, as the season as a whole saw the Huns ride off with the league trophy again and it was in retrospect a false dawn.
On the other hand, it was an early signal of the quality of some of the players that was to play a significant part in the club’s sustained revival and success under Martin O’Neill, something that we had to wait a little too long for. It was a mouthwatering prospect.
Regardless, amongst all the gloom and doom, this was a wonderful respite for us all.
Teams
Celtic:-
Warner, Boyd, Mahe, Stubbs, Mjallby, O’Donnell, Lambert, Moravcik (Burchill 82), Riseth, Donnelly (Hannah 79), Larsson.
Subs not used:- McCondichie, Brattbakk, Annoni.
Booked:- Stubbs,Mjallby.
Goals:- Moravcik 11, 49, Larsson 51, 57, Burchill 89.
Rangers:-
Niemi, Porrini, Numan, B. Ferguson (I. Ferguson 74), Kanchelskis (Vidmar 61), Van Bronckhorst, Albertz (Durie 61), Guivarc’h, Wallace, Wilson, Hendry.
Subs not used:- Nicholson, Brown.
Goal:- Van Bronckhorst 53.
Sent Off:- Wilson (22).
Booked:- Numan, Hendry.
Att:- 59,703
Ref:- W Young
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
Quotes
“Josef Venglos will live to regret his decision to play this unknown Slovakian ahead of Mark Burchill in such a vital Old Firm Game.”
Derek Johnstone, Lubomir Moravcik scored twice as Rangers were destroyed 5-1. (1998)
“I thought I knew about it all . . . then the game started. For the first 10 minutes, I was really s**t-scared. I mean it. I didn’t want the ball anywhere near me and when it did come to me I felt my touch was terrible. The noise around the place was incredible. I’d never experienced anything like it. After that start, though, I really began to enjoy it and, of course, we won 5-1. That game will live with me forever.”
Johan Mjallby
“Of course Lubomir is relaxed – he was with me before the game!
“He did not celebrate very much because he had no idea what had happened both times. It takes two or three minutes for his goals to get through to his brain.
“He has done many things in football. No one should be surprised at his ability.”
Stephane Mahe
“I think we have to be happy with a good performance. Hopefully we can build on this result because we have had one or two false starts this season. We played with spirit, passion and determination and we will need that for every game from now on.”
Dr Josef Venglos
Celtic goalkeeperTony Warner crashed his car after the game that night on the way back down the road to Liverpool, but thankfully was fine. He remarked on the incident (via twitter many years later):
“Yeah, not even that could take the shine off the day.”
Stats
| Celtic | Rangers | |
| Bookings | 2 | 2 |
| Red Cards | 0 | 1 |
| Fouls | 19 | 14 |
| Shots on Target | 11 | 2 |
| Corners | 2 | 5 |
| Offside | 6 | 2 |
Articles
Tonic for Doctor Jo
Scotland on Sunday 22/11/1998
Celtic 5 Rangers 1
AMID the cataract of verbiage and blether on the Old Firm, no-one suggested this. Celtic bludgeoned Rangers, in the scoreline at least, although there was grace and artistry in this exhibition of their football, especially from Lubomir Moravcik, a little Slovakian whose arrival at this club two weeks ago was greeted with quiet sniggering. That kind of scorn, which was wrapped in ignorance, met a muzzling effect yesterday.
Celtic scored astutely after 11 minutes, a moment which charged the game with raw passion given that the home side were such underdogs, but Rangers were wrecked by a peculiar folly, highlighted in their shambolic defending. The visitors, in particular, were grossly vulnerable to the high ball, allowing two of Celtic’s scorers, Moravcik and Henrik Larsson, to hurt them with headers from within congested penalty areas. Rangers’ greatest sin, though, was the sending-off of Scott Wilson after 21 minutes, for a clean hack on Moravcik.
Celtic’s movements were knitted together by this little player and the cerebral Larsson. Moravcik opened the scoring with a velvety punch from his left boot, but as the match wore on, and he intermittently hogged the left touchline and then the midfield, there wasn’t a Rangers player capable of shackling his mind or feet. In one delicious pirouette he made a knot of Sergio Porrini, dancing with the ball between his ankles and feinting this way and that. For all his hours of football played with the old Czechoslovakia, this will surely remain one of Moravcik’s special moments.
Plenty doubts were uttered prior to kick-off about these alleged bungles of Jozef Venglos, relegating Mark Burchill to the bench in order to play Moravcik as an attacker. With this game, and this result, and these goals, one had to say, the old coach knows a bit about footballing wisdom. This was a rich vindication and redemption for Venglos, after weeks of scorn and demeaning comment in our media.
This sophisticated and civilised man stood on the touchline at the finish, shaking the hands of both sets of players and allowing himself a punch of delight in the air. After months of toil with Celtic, he has abruptly foisted upon Rangers their worst Old Firm defeat in 32 years. You wouldn’t guess from his comments, though, that Venglos knows anything about hubris or triumphalism.
“Do you think I don’t know about Moravcik’s qualities, after 73 international caps and his games in World Cups and European Championships under me?” asked Venglos. “He is a very good player with lots of skill and awareness. But I thought my whole team showed great spirit and passion for the game.”
The atmosphere caused convulsions in the blood but it was still impossible to diagnose Wilson’s mad lunge after 21 minutes.
His team were already a goal adrift, and Moravcik was fully ten yards within his own half, but the way Wilson threw his studs at this little Slovakian made you guess at some darker agenda which had doubtless brewed from the start. Wilson, red-carded by Willie Young, certainly trooped off shame-faced, while Dick Advocaat’s prancing around the dugout didn’t do a lot for any calm.
This Dutch trainer of Rangers is both an impressive coach and human being but you wonder if he needs a bazooka-fill of Valium before occasions like these. Advocaat here produced the foot-stomping antics of a desperate, writhing man. By contrast, the gentle Venglos absorbed all this like the old sage that he is, at one point even drifting down the tunnel behind his dugout with a wry smile. The game, however, with its bristling incidents and rancorous audience, was enough to stir the dead.
It was flung to a higher plane of noise and anticipation by Moravcik’s stunning goal for Celtic as early as that 11th minute. And even this wasn’t without controversy: only 20 seconds earlier, Alan Stubbs had appeared to be remarkably clumsy in challenging Rod Wallace in the penalty area, a scramble that left the striker in a pile on the turf. Rangers – led by their fiery general in the dugout -made roasting complaints about this.
But Celtic hardly flinched. Almost in the same instant, the game was swept to the other end, and Phil O’Donnell’s cross from the left cut a tantalising pass across the Rangers area. When Larsson dummied the ball, it bobbled sweetly before Moravcik.
The finish was exquisite: a lashing left-foot shot, cutting up and across the ball, giving it a venomous spin which left Antti Niemi clawing at air.
The match simply took on a frenzy, seeming to rain down goals from a Celtic side so disparaged and ridiculed in recent weeks.
When Rangers attempted to assert themselves, the Celtic goalkeeper, Tony Warner, was obdurate. Warner clutched an Andrei Kanchelskis drive, spooned a Stephan Guivarc’h free-kick around a post, and once Rangers were sworded by Wilson’s sending-off, the flames of their aggression simply subsided.
Nothing deterred Celtic – as the match progressed, and Moravcik took up squirreling positions here and there, their numerical supremacy turned into a parade.
In the 49th minute, Moravcik’s free header from Tom Boyd’s cross evaded Niemi once more. Three minutes later, Larsson’s run and shot for Celtic’s third was typical intelligence from this Swede, as he coursed through onto Simon Donnelly’s pass, dragged the ball beyond Colin Hendry, and clipped his shot over Niemi.
Celtic nailed this contest with their fourth goal, and third inside seven minutes, in the 56th minute, Larsson burying a header from Phil O’Donnell’s cross.
Burchill, arriving as a substitute, made it five with a low drive right on the 90th minute.
Giovani Van Bronckhorst’s free-kick, which cannoned off Warner’s post and into the net, was almost an irrelevant goal for Rangers after 54 minutes.
A star is born – the arrival of Lubo
Celticfc.net
By: Joe Sullivan on 21 Nov, 2011 08:02
IT was on this day in 1998 that a star was born in the East End of Glasgow when Lubomir Moravcik burst on to the scene in no uncertain terms.
A few weeks earlier his arrival at Celtic was met with indifference by the Scottish press. One columnist was moved to describe the transfer as ‘laughable’ and label him as nothing more than one of Dr Jozef Venglos’ ‘pals’.
Yet after 90 mercurial minutes in his debut match against Dundee, which Celtic won 6-1 on November 7, 1998, everyone realised that Celtic had a special talent on their hands.
He was outstanding, with his sublime cross for Henrik Larsson’s hat-trick goal the highlight of the match. Costing just £300,000 from Duisburg, Moravcik immediately looked like the steal of the decade.
Lubo had been a Celtic player for less than a month by the time Rangers arrived at Celtic Park on November 21 for the first Glasgow derby of the 1998/99 season. It’s a game that can make or break even seasoned professionals but Lubo was born for this stage.
Some 11 minutes had elapsed when he stepped on to Larsson’s dummy and whipped an unerring left-foot finish into the bottom corner from 18 yards. Just four minutes into the second half, Lubo was at it again – powering home a bullet header to give Celtic a 2-0 lead.
A Larsson double and a solitary Mark Burchill strike rounded off the famous 5-1 victory
Despite all the goals scored it had to be the all round performance by Moravcik as he weaved his magical left foot all through the game. His skill was something to behold and there wasn’t a single player in the Rangers team that could prevent him from doing what he wanted.
One of the most memorable moments of the game was when he ran down the left-wing, and with Sergio Porrini closing him down he darted one way before flicking the ball between the bamboozled Italian’s legs in a piece of skill that had the Celtic fans wanting more and Porrini wanting to get as far away from Lubo as possible.
Lubo himself recalled: “Before this game we didn’t expect a big result against Rangers because they were dominating in the league. I was a little bit scared about what would happen in the game because it was my first derby although I was very motivated for the game
“But I was a bit scared – about the result, not about my game because you can play well but if it’s not a good result, it wouldn’t be good for me, but it all went well for me, I scored two goals and everything changed for me after that.”
See below from Scotland on Sunday, Celtic hammer Rangers and then you get TWO pandering stories devoted to Ranger.
![[Untitled]](https://wikifoundryimages.s3.amazonaws.com/d687rzR5XFRJEK5VQXnrbA122853 "[Untitled]")
